The End
by Kanthia
Summary: They did it. They've won. They've lost everything.


**The End**  
Word Count: 2323  
Pairing: None  
Rating: T  
Disclaimer: Golden Sun belongs to someone else.  
Notes:Sort of AU...I'd like to think of it as a different possible ending. Kind of the spawn of all of those 'end of the world' messages the media is giving off...if there's anything canonicly wrong with the second part of it, which there is, let me know.

**-Warning-  
Things die. Depressingly.**

--

"_We did it," he said._

"_I'm sorry," she said, "I know what they meant to you."_

"_It's all right," he said. His words were a useless patter of monosyllables and she knew he wasn't going to say anything more. He didn't need to- his actions had said enough. He believed in his goal, and he had done everything to achieve it; that was all._

--

She was a healer. He was a fighter, his friend was a fighter and the boy clutching an ancient staff was a caster. They were only four people and they had done horrible and great things to save the world they loved.

Her hands were stained with blood. The blood of a red-haired, frightened young woman screaming cold murder perhaps a year younger than her. And she was a healer, a woman who saw faces in puddles and souls in weeping raindrops. The epitome of a hypocrite.

When their leaders fell, the boy and his sister and their scholar and the wide-eyed little girl trying to fly away had to as well- for the future of the good planet. Everything for the future of a planet that six pairs of eyes would see no longer. And she, she was forced to come to terms that she had helped to kill them, and that she hadn't abhorred it.

Their leader had said to do it. They were traitors.

--

In the forgotten parts of his ego that dictated that he was still a little animal, he enjoyed it. For a lost second, it was lovely. For a split moment, it was blood rushing to the brain, energy flying off fingertips, the sky screaming cold murder and singing joyfully as he called it down again and again.

He remembered tearing the staff from the dark-eyed young man. He remembered spinning off towards the fleeing, panicked girl with dark eyes and hair his same colour- if he had a sister, she would be her. Still charged from the bluish blood splattered on him from those evil people from the North, he had caught her. The oxygen rushing though his lungs had been incredible as he had placed a finger on her temple and sent the fury of the sky through her head.

Blood, oh, the blood of the traitor who had not committed a crime!

He had killed her.

Their leader had said to do it. They were traitors.

--

_He'd only seen her once, up in the top of a tower and a prison, but he could still remember her face. She was a female version of himself- the light-coloured eyes set deep into her face, the small lips, the blonde hair falling rounded over the top of her head. The pale skin, strange for a child who grew up in the desert._

"_Her name is Sheba," Isaac said. "I think she's an Adept."_

"_We should…get her to help us," he had said before thinking._

_Garet's eyes showed obvious surprise. "Why, Ivan?"_

"_I guess," he had said before thinking, "She reminds me of myself."_

--

It was over now.

He had never felt so amazing. He was bleeding steadily from wounds he didn't know he had, and he was swimming in blood- blue, red, crimson, a rainbow of released barbarism. His own veins were currents of electricity, numbing everything save for the thrill of the hunt and the kill. To watch their bodies crumble and burn to ashes. This was what he was _born_ for.

But it was over now.

The two bodies at his feet were bleeding images of his past. The brown hair, ripped out and matted with his own blood, was a little tiny boy drowning in the waters of treason. The grey hair was a conniving old man who had asked them to take the Stars so that he could commit this act of lighting the lighthouses alone with his pathetic friends whom he had conspired with; those strange people from the North who thought that Dragons could stand up to the four of them.

But it was over now.

He was suddenly aware of his heavy breathing. The air was too humid, now, because _they_ had managed to light the one House that disliked his abilities. That was of no matter, because they could go back and seal it easily. The large stone hovering next to his leader had already sealed this lighthouse.

It had been a great fight. He kicked the crumpled body of the dead Venus Adept at his feet.

It was all over now.

Their leader had said to do it. They were traitors.

--

_Garet noticed that Felix rarely talked when they got together to play. He was a year older than the three of them and only seemed to open up when his sister asked him a direct question. When they played 'Psy Avengers', Felix had always let himself be the evil outsider who came to steal the Psynergy, the one who got defeated in the end by a valiant swipe of the wooden sword that Garet saved just for his favourite game._

"_Garet?"_

_Felix's eyes were dark that afternoon when he had run into him after dinner. "Yeah, Felix?"_

"_D'you think that people will ever actually come to steal the Psy?"_

"_Naw, nobody would want to."_

"_If they did, would I be the evil one?"_

"_No, you're cool."_

"_If I was the evil one, would you still kill me?" _

--

He was their leader, despite his early protests, and he had just saved the world from mankind's stupidity. Parts of his mind were chattering to other parts of his mind about how history would hail him as the hero that stopped his own traitorous brethren from releasing Alchemy on the miserable planet.

He shut his brain up.

Why had he done this? Why had he commanded his friends to kill his friends? This was all the fault of the Stone- the Stone hovering there, sealing away the Earth that had been released hours and days and years and millennia and minutes ago. He hated it and loved it with all of his heart for releasing him.

When they had set out, him and his friend, they knew this day would come eventually when they would deal justice unto their old friends. And justice had been dealt. They had killed the two tall ones from Prox with the help of the Stone, who then gave him the will to command his friends to kill the terror-stricken old memories who had been waiting and watching the fight. And with savage glory and animalistic need for blood driving them along with the encouragement of the Wise Stone, they left no survivors.

He had made a single kill with the help of his healer. The dead, she was at his feet, no longer able to sustain the fiery light that had made her so beautiful in life. She was a beautiful, horrible, wonderful, disgusting traitor who had followed her brother and had thus deserved judgment in its basest form. History would only have room for two adjectives before her name.

And to see her eyes wide open the moment before his sword plunged into her chest, screaming that they weren't going to destroy the world- he didn't regret it, didn't, didn't, didn't- it was necessary, it was wonderful. It was over. They won. Their enemies were dead, the world was saved, and they could go home and be happy for the rest of their lives.

The four of them said nothing as they picked up the bodies of their old friends and threw them over the edge of the aerie into the open maw of the sea below.

They were traitors.

The Wise One had said to do it.

--

_She was taller than him back when they were seven years old. He had always been short when he was young, shorter than Garet and Felix and Jenna. It made him uncomfortable when they played._

"_Close your eyes."_

_He did so. If he didn't, Jenna might run off crying. He felt a hand grab his, and something was slid on his finger. When he opened his eyes, there was a little band made of a daisy stem on his ring finger._

"_See?" Her eyes were bright. "When we grow up, you hafta marry me!"_

_He pouted. Girls and their marriage- how could you live with someone who had cooties?_

"_Are you gonna marry me, Isaac?"_

"_Mama says we're too young to get married."_

"_Your mama's married, though."_

"'_Cause she's old."_

_Jenna made a face and looked at the ring on his finger. She picked a daisy, took off its stem and tied it around her own finger. "When we're old, will you marry me then?"_

"'_Kay." Isaac said, defeated._

"_That's good, 'cause if you marry me then we'll be happy. And we'll live happily together forever."_

--

--

--

Two hundred years ago, the books said, the four Valiant Ones- two from Vale, one from Vault and one from Imil- went on a great journey full of peril and adventure to defeat the six Traitorous Ones. The children of Vale loved to listen to the story and always booed and hissed at the appropriate moments when the Traitorous Ones were introduced. The names of the two Traitors from Vale had been retired as names for new children and were never spoken aloud. No parent would want that disgrace on their child.

It was a favourite story. Afterwards, the children would get together and play the game their fathers had played, 'Psy Avengers'. They'd throw stones to decide who would play the roles of the Traitors and the boy and girl who were chosen for the worst roles would always play them with grim fortitude; they were necessary roles to make the game fun.

Once a year, the village would gather to celebrate the Day of Retribution. On that day, the adults would play Psy Avenger on stage, and the children who swore they were old and brave enough to watch would always cry at the scene when the Traitorous Ones came on stage. To see the tall man with blue paint on his skin and hair, the scary woman with red paint covering her skin- they were frightening enough, but the worst scene was always the one in which the Heroes grabbed the third Star for the old scholar. They would bury their eyes into their mothers' breasts as the Traitor of Venus came onstage in the horrible, horrible mask and the hall would be filled with terrified shrieks. This was the worst part, for the Traitor of Mars was a friend of the Valiant Ones until her brother came and corrupted her.

But they stayed strong through the rest of the acts, watching the Valiant Ones journey to strange places, cringing as the evil ones stayed a step ahead of them at Mercury but clapping happily when the Valiant One of Water came onstage for the first time. They stayed though the Battle of Colossus wherein the Leader of the Valiants fought bravely against grown men twice his size. They stayed through the final scene where the Valiants and the Traitors fought and judgment was dealt, for at the end of the final scene all of the children would stand up as tradition dictated, and for that one moment on that one night they screamed the six Forbidden Names of the Traitors until their voices were hoarse. And the adults would sit listening to their children learn what happens to traitors.

--

Three hundred years passed.

It was the five hundredth anniversary of the Day of Retribution, five hundred years since the town elders had decided to seal the tiny town of Vale from the outside world. They would support themselves, grow their own crops, and never communicate with the outside world for fear of future Traitors. The Stars would be under constant watch. The world would be safe.

But five hundred years were over and the town had grown curious. They elected a single man to sneak out of the town at the crack of dawn. According to their ancient maps, the closest town was the Keep of the Valiant of Wind, Vault. This man was to make a pilgrimage to Vault and collect news of the outside world and then return the same day. The town would be waiting for his word.

He was excited. For this journey, he had been given the ultimate honour: when he arrived at Vault, he was to proclaim that his name was Isaak. To take the exact name would be blasphemy, but it was almost the same as being called a God.

His heart was pounding as the town saw him off and he took the first step outside Vale in five hundred years. A thick forest had grown surrounding the town, partially due to the Psynergy of Venus Adepts in ages past and partially due to time and neglect.

The landscape was a little different than what he remembered from studying the old maps, and he couldn't see that far- it was still dark. After half an hour or so of traversing the thick growth, he came to a large hill that sloped out of the forest; Vault and the rest of the world would be on the other side. He sat down at the bottom of the slope and ate his breakfast quickly with excitement pulsing in his veins. The sun rose beautifully over the crest of the slope. After he was done, he started to climb the hill while whistling happily and listening to the name 'Isaak' resound in his head.

He came to the top and looked down at the land below, his heart fracturing and his blood freezing in his veins.

_Oh, my God._

Down below the hill, perhaps a hundred meters from his feet and half a kilometer from Vale, there was only blackness- blackness forever and forever and forever…

--


End file.
